The Four Fields of Anthropology

     American anthropology has historically been divided into four main fields: cultural anthropology, archaeology, biological anthropology and linguistic anthropology. However, an increasingly important part of anthropology is a fifth area called applied anthropology. While most anthropologists you may interact with are university professors, it is important to realize that today most professional anthropologists are not university professors but instead work in the corporate world, for state or federal agencies, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). For example, medical anthropology is an applied specialty within cultural anthropology and it is common for medical anthropologists to work in the field of public health. On the other hand, forensic anthropology is an applied specialty within biological anthropology and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (whose task is to locate the remains of American servicemen and women) is the largest employer of forensic anthropologists in the world. The primary applied area of archaeology is cultural resource management, or CRM. Archaeologists working for CRM firms typically conduct archaeological excavations prior to a site’s destruction in large construction projects. Although the focus of this text is cultural anthropology, all of the fields intersect with each other and it is difficult to discuss one without mentioning the others.

Section 1

Section 3